An excerpt from Dr. Harding’s concluding thoughts:

The Anglican constitutional and canon law tradition is a minimalist tradition. I remember studying at Boston College, a Jesuit university, during my doctoral work and always being able to find a chair and table in the library’s canon law room which had shelves and shelves of books on Roman Catholic canon law. There was one whole wall devoted to canon law for the various religious societies. In contrast the canon law of The Episcopal Church or any of its dioceses is one smallish book. Our tradition is the minimum of ecclesiastical jurisprudence that is needed to maintain the order of the church. This covenant is in that tradition. I wish that it were more robust in places but I think it adequate to be the basis of an ongoing life of mutual submission and growth in unity and mission for the Anglican Communion but much will depend on the integrity of the individuals who will be because of their office the stewards of this covenant.

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I think it important to note the emphasis in the document on the collective episcopate. The American BCP in the Ordinal rightly notes the universal role of the bishops. In a real sense they should be a constant bulwark against theories of autonomy, local synodical individuality and pretentions of lay partisans, which undermine universality.

Unfortunately TEC bishops seem largely to lack a sense of what Eric Mascall termed “apostolic incorporation.”  Mascall argued that the term “succession” was inadequate to describe the nature of the episcopate. Bishops are “incorporated” into the historic Apostolate when they are ordained and consecrated. Some seem strongly convinced of their local diocesan autonomy by virtue of their “succession”. Perhaps this is strengthened by TEC’s habit of numbering bishops, stressing an American genealogy of prelates, ironically a practice closer to the manner in which peers of the realm identify themselves…the 7th Earl of Bagshot! 

The collective episcopate is thus much more than a local club or “House”.  It’s members are called a a conscious participation in a company many of whose members are in our terms about two thousand years old. Few bishops are trained to apprehend their collegiality with the current universal episcopate, let alone with “those whose rest is won.”  Studying Holy Scripture, Patristics, in the light of such incorporate responsibility would seem to be essential in the Anglican context in which few external authorities impinge upon the usual life of a bishop.

I was particularly struck by Leander’s concluding remarks.  I vividly remember the comments of a member of the Windsor Commission who was horrified by the lying encountered with certain TEC folk.  This crystalized for me the problem of trust.  I no longer trust those who now lead TEC.  That being the case why offer agreements and Covenants that will be assented to and then ignored as these folk will do the opposite.  My hope is that the Covenant will in fact be a focus of unity and commitment to a majority of the Communion and then sadly folk such as TEC will just no longer be players in the New Communion.  We shall see.

When I was a young man and entering into a business contract for the first time, I asked my father for some advice about the enforceability of a particular contract. He told me that if a man’s word wasn’t any good, his paper wasn’t any good either. In many cases the current chaos that we are experiencing in the Churches of the Anglican Communion is not a result of a lack of articulated rules and procedures of church discipline, but is the result of an unwillingness by those charged with the stewardship of the order of the church to enforce such discipline as has already been established. This version of the Anglican Covenant is a minimalist document. It does clarify issues of communion life and order and provide an agreed-upon process for handling disputes. It can be a real instrument for growth in truth, unity and mission, but only if those to whom the responsibility has been given to be stewards of the church’s order have the necessary moral courage to fulfill their office.

I agree Ian. But I think it would be a mistake to evaluate the Covenant as if it were a document designed with TEC and Canada specifically in mind. Rather I think it is a gift to the Communion and from the Communion to the rest of Christendom. It provides an ecclesiology distinct from Roman centrality or Orthodox ethnicity and yet fully Catholic and Reformed.

You are correct Tony in saying this.

Fr. Tony Clavier - 05 January 2010 03:09 PM

I agree Ian. But I think it would be a mistake to evaluate the Covenant as if it were a document designed with TEC and Canada specifically in mind. Rather I think it is a gift to the Communion and from the Communion to the rest of Christendom. It provides an ecclesiology distinct from Roman centrality or Orthodox ethnicity and yet fully Catholic and Reformed.

However - to use the overworked word “context” - from the context of one in North America, albeit now to a limited extent, my dream, prayer and hope, has been of a TEC (and ACoC) which might humble itself and actually become accountable, interdependent and, yes, honest in its dealings with the Communion whose fabric it has so callously torn in its “prophetic” hubris.

The Covenant is designed to prevent this happening again.  It cannot heal the divisions that we now experience.  However as Leander says, to make it work in the future we cannot have business as usual that follows the examples set by some TEC leaders/bishops whose skill as spin and mendacity make Wormwood look like a nonstarter.  Maybe the rest of the Communion can indeed make a fresh start.  Working now in the Southern Cone maybe I can be part of that.

Bless you my friend. Felix Nuevo Año - Ian

Ian Montgomery - 05 January 2010 03:02 PM

I was particularly struck by Leander’s concluding remarks.  I vividly remember the comments of a member of the Windsor Commission who was horrified by the lying encountered with certain TEC folk.  This crystalized for me the problem of trust.  I no longer trust those who now lead TEC.  That being the case why offer agreements and Covenants that will be assented to and then ignored as these folk will do the opposite.  My hope is that the Covenant will in fact be a focus of unity and commitment to a majority of the Communion and then sadly folk such as TEC will just no longer be players in the New Communion.  We shall see.

This is a fairly typical sort of scurrilous smear.  Let the Windsor person provide names and incidents please of those who lied.  Lets see the evidence.  It is more shameful Ian to extend the hearsay to the entire leadership of TEC.  You ought to remember that lying and dissembling was a specific part of the AAC and ACN strategy as outlined in the Chapman memo.

Actually the truth and I will not name names - two members of the group were personal friends.
The Chapman memo was from my perspective a prophetic plan to deal with what has actually unfolded.  There again I know Mr. Chapman and esteem him highly. 
This chasm cannot be bridged - two churches, two religions under one roof.

Michael, I’ve had another read of the Chapman memo to see if I’d missed something the first time I read it, and I must admit that I don’t really follow you. It’s possible that you are speaking of consequences of consequences of what people could say as a consequence of some of the points of the memo - but I’m not finding any advocacy of lying or dissembling in the memo itself, and am likely to think that the memo assumes that people will not go about lying simply in order to bring about the goals of the memo.  True, discernment is called upon, as well as use of certain types of language and avoidance of other types of language, but that is standard procedure during times of conflict - calling on people not to use the “heavy guns” in the rhetorical repertoire so as to prevent unnecessary escalation - e.g., in the memo, how one should best describe one’s relationship with one’s bishop.

Could you point out to me, in which manner, lying and dissemblance are a part of this strategy - and since you are citing the memo specifically, how the memo is advocating such?  I’ve also looked through the Barfoot Memorandum just in case you meant that - and again, no advocacy of dissembling that I can spot.

You may be confusing things here - I know that Katie Sherrod was saying something about “lies” in the ACNA, and I know that there have been many complaints about the Chapman memo, but I think you may be confounding the two.  Ms. Sherrod was complaining that it was being represented to Dio Fort Worth people that they could withdraw with their property without any problem - now, I’ve never seen this actually alleged, though she might have been trying to sum up the “general tone” of things - I wasn’t there, can’t tell what the general tone was, and of course ... lying is a pretty serious charge, so I would have liked to have seen more evidence.  What evidence have you seen?  I sort of fear that one person gets angry, alleges something ... it gets picked up by someone else ... and in a short time, a number of people are speaking of “lies” where the actual facts may point to something that’s really more like divergent opinions.

This is indeed a confusing situation and I am not really sure “how right or wrong” it was for the various entities that left TEC, to do so - I do have deep respect for some who have left, and I have deep respect for some who stay.  Fortunately I don’t have to make that decision, I’m happy to live on a continent that isn’t embroiled in this dispute - history divided us quite some time ago into separate churches.